1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to arrangements for securely holding garment hangers within garment bags and, more particularly, to clamping and locking assemblies operative for preventing garment hangers and clothes hung therefrom from falling during handling of the bags in transit.
2. Description of Related Art
Various clamping and locking assemblies have heretofore been proposed for holding one or several garment hangers which support different items of clothing which are to be housed in their entirety within the confines of a garment bag. Such bags are conventionally used by travelers. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,566,456; 4,252,220 and 4,363,388.
Although generally effective for their intended purpose, experience has shown that the known garment holding assemblies suffer from the drawback that at least some of the hangers work themselves loose from their confinement, particularly during rough handling of the bag during transit. These loose hangers drop into the bag with concomitant wrinkling and crushing of the clothing.
Furthermore, after transit, the garment bag is typically unloaded in a hotel room or the like, and the hangers are individually hung on a closet pole or analogous support. However, the unloading of hangers has had problems associated therewith. In a conventional construction, all of the hangers are supported on a movable leg of a clamp. When the clamp is opened, by moving the movable leg downwardly in a vertical plane, several, or in some cases, all, of the hangers slide downwardly lengthwise along the movable leg, thereby permitting or more of the hangers to fall, with the aforementioned concomitant wrinkling and crushing of the clothing on the fallen hanger. To prevent this sliding problem, the movable clamp leg of such prior art constructions has been provided with roughened or notched surfaces, but, nevertheless, invariably some hangers fall.
Another conventional clamping assembly opens a movable leg of a clamp on a horizontal plane, in which case, all of the hangers are freed at once. Hence, to prevent falling, all of the hangers have to be grasped and held all at once in one hand and, thereupon, hung either individually, severally, or all together on the closet pole with the other hand, a feat which may be difficult for some travelers to perform without unduly wrinkling the clothes.
Some travelers prefer not to unload all the contents of the garment bag upon their arrival in the hotel room, but, instead, hang the entire bag from the closet pole or closet door, and unload only those hanger-supported garments as and when needed. The problem with such selective unloading is that the clothes, which are typically packed in close quarters for compact storage and handling, tend to crush one another when they remain in such compact relation for long periods of time.